One Obligation

Each of us has one obligation to God: to make the best of the life he gives as it is given. This assumes of course that we are pursuing his will and not simply indulging every whim. If self-centeredness is the rule, then our only obligation is to ourselves, to self-gratification and to making the best of what we find there. That, as C.S. Lewis puts it, is the best description of hell I can think of.

If we profess to live by God's will then we must trust that he has given us each what he intended that we should have today, and that is by definition his best for us. A monk has time, silence and brotherhoood. I have a marriage, a family and a church. There is no use turning aside those gifts and seeking what the monk has; I must find peace, joy and contentment where it lies: in my own circumstances and not another's.

The challenge? Can I find God in the workaday minutiae? Can I experience him in the utterly commonplace? In this my challenge is the same as the monastatic's: consecrate each activity as it comes, accept each gift with a thankful heart and live my vocation as a gift from his hand. It is to will one thing at a time.